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The Eye of the Fire Dragon

12-27-2018, 05:59 PM

Hello there everyone! I got the urge to convert the Eye of the Fire Dragon from 2nd edition to 3rd edition as it's one of my favorite artifacts. Also the art in the new Dragonblooded book gave me huge desire for it. So as a late Christmas Present i'll post it here for all to enjoy. If you're in the discord you've probably seen bits and pieces or even the google docs I had working on it. Hopefully everyone enjoys!

Eye of the Fire Dragon: Red Jade Direlance (Artifact •••••)

Solars are always considered Dissonant with the Eye of the Fire Dragon, its hateful essence recognizing its wielder to be that which it was made to destroy. While the head is covered the weapon appears only as an incredibly well made spear and deals bashing damage.Attunement: The wielder of the Eye of the Fire Dragon gains a multitude of effects.

The wielder can spend 1m to reflexively remove the cover of the Eye, allowing it to wreathe itself in righteous fury and deal lethal damage. Hated Foes take Aggravated Damage from the blade and all its evocations.

Striking an opponent which fits under a negative tie that the wielder has designates the target as a Hated Foe.

Solar Exalted always count as Hated Foes and are treated as if using the Defining Tie of Hatred that the weapon has instead of their own. Once a hated foe has been struck the head of the Eye of the Fire Dragon burns with a crimson fire, battering the foe with its killing intent.

Solars alone suffer a penalty to their defense equal to the strength of the tie that the Eye of the Fire Dragon holds against them. (-3)

Targets that have been designated as Hated Foes take a penalty on attacks against the wielder equal to the intimacy weighing them down. (-1 minor, -2 major, etc.)

Hated foes that pick up this weapon are subjected to the weapons direct hatred manifesting as a bonfire hazard targeted at them for as long as they hold the weapon. Pulling the Hood over the weapon stops this, but also locks off access to all of its evocations.

The Eye of the Fire Dragon has an Immutable Defining tie of Hatred towards the solar Exalted.

A Dragonblooded who wields this weapon may always treat their Aura as if it were a Fire Aura, even at the Bonfire level of Anima. A fire dragon increases the damage of their Anima flux at bonfire by 1 while wielding this weapon.

Burning Hateful Strike

Cost: 3m; Mins: Essence 1Type: SupplementalKeywords: Dissonant, Withering-OnlyDuration: InstantPrerequisites: NoneFocusing the weapons burning hatred to their foe into a more succinct and potent strike, melting away the opponent’s defenses. If this enhances a Withering attack, it changes the Overwhelming bonus towards a Hated Foe into a post-soak damage bonus, this assault melts away metal armors, on a piercing attack causing your opponent to lose 2 armored soak for the scene. This effect can stack, mundane armor brought to 0 in this manner is destroyed. Artifact armor repairs itself at scene end.Dissonant: A solar attempting to use this evocation suffers blowback from this evocation, fire scalding their hands and skin. This causes the solar to lose 2i, or suffer 2 dice of hardness ignoring aggravated damage in crash.The Dragons Majesty

Cost: (+1m); Mins: Essence 2Type: ReflexiveKeywords: Dissonant, Withering-OnlyDuration: InstantPrerequisites: Burning Dragon MienThe Dragon is fearsome to behold, and its eye will stare deep into the opponents very being, shaking them to the core. Upon winning Join Battle this allows the Dragonblood to reflexively activate Burning Dragon Mien for an additional mote. If the threaten action is successful the opponent loses (Essence) initiative, which the dragonblood now gains.Crescent Talon Sweep

Cost: 5m (+Expend Fire Aura, +1wp); Mins: Essence 2Type: ReflexiveKeywords: Aura, DissonantDuration: InstantPrerequisites: Burning Hateful StrikeIn a moment of perfect clarity the wielder of Eye of the Fire Dragon strikes their enemy in a flash of burning fire just as they’re forced onto their back foot. When the wielder deals at least 5+ withering damage to a Hated Foe they can make a single decisive attack against their target that ignores hardness and does not reset the wielder to base initiative. The damage of this attack is the amount of initiative that they stole from their opponent on the attack, and does not include their total initiative. This initiative is not added to their track if the attack is successful. If the attack is unsuccessful then the wielder only gains half the initiative they would have gained from the withering attack. This does not count as the wielders attack action for the turn.Aura: If the wielder expends their fire aura and expends a point of willpower they may apply this strike to all opponents in Close Range. This one attack is compared to the defenses of all opponents, and the full damage it applied to all of them. Dissonant: If the wielder is Solar they suffer the effects of their secondary strike as well. Wildfire of the Self Invocation

Cost: - (3i); Mins: Essence 2Type: ReflexiveKeywords: NoneDuration: InstantPrerequisites: Burning Hateful StrikeLike an unstoppable inferno, the dragon whirls and burns all in its path, but nothing burns as bright as their own conviction. Whenever the Fire Dragon expends their Fire Aura, they may reflexively spend 3i to ignite a bonfire on themselves, striking all enemies in close range. They and all fire Dragons are immune. Hated Foes are never immune. At Essence 5+ the user can expend 6i to make the bonfire strike all characters at Short range from themselves.

Fire Dragon Cleanses the Battlefield

Cost: - (+5m); Mins: Essence 3Type: PermanentKeywords: NoneDuration: PermanentPrerequisites: Crescent Talon SweepWith rage burning in both heart and weapon, the flames burning at the Eye’s tip reach out to scorch all who gets in the way of its vengeance. This allows the wielder to enhance Crescent Talon Sweep’s Aura effect. For a surcharge of 5 additional motes, the wielders attack sweeps to hit all characters at short range of them in a 180 degree arc in front of them. Afterwards this ignites the grounds beneath all struck opponents immediately, subjecting them to a bonfire hazard, which continues to burn beneath them until it is put out, but may be moved out of normally. Fire aspected Dragonbloods are immune to this effect, but Hated Foes are never immune.All Dragons Blaze in Glory

Cost: -; Mins: Essence 3Type: ReflexiveKeywords: NoneDuration: InstantPrerequisites: Fire Dragon Cleanses the BattlefieldThe Majesty of a dragon is always apparent, no one aspect shines above the other. So too does this view hold true with the Eye. The wielder may expend a point of willpower to make their Fire aura count as any other Aura for the purposes of expending it. This can be used Once per Scene. This may be reset by expending a non-fire Aura on another charm against an opponent.Wildfire Blur Technique

Cost: - (+1wp); Mins: Essence 4Type: PermanentKeywords: NoneDuration: PermanentPrerequisites: Fire Dragon Cleanses the Battlefield, Harnessed Firestorm AssaultIn a flash of furious blows, the opponent is brought low, as the fire from the blade bolsters the dragons assault, trailing blades of fiery essence battering and burning their opponent. This evocation upgrades Hardnessed Firestorm Assault, allowing the Dragon to make the higher or (Dexterity or Strength) + specialty attacks instead of higher of (Dexterity or Strength + specialty)/2 attacks. For an additional point of willpower this charm allows successful strikes on a Hated Foe to count as 2 successful strikes for the purposes of Stoking Bonfire Style.Heat of Battle Momentum

Cost: 8i, 1wp, Expend Fire Aura; Mins: Essence 4Type: ReflexiveKeywords: Clash, Aura, Decisive-onlyDuration: InstantPrerequisites: Fire Dragon Cleanses the BattlefieldAn instant of battle crystallizes in the mind of the wielder. The perfect killing moment. All the force of their opponents strike leaving them wide open. This allows the wielder to make a decisive clash against an opponent's attack which does not count as their attack action for the turn. This attack if successful ignites their opponent in a bonfire hazard (on top of the base benefits for winning a decisive clash). The wielder to enhances this bonfire, increasing its damage by 2 and increasing the difficulty by 1. This bonfire continues to burn for the wielders (Essence) turns. Winning the clash does not have the user roll their initiative for damage. This does not reset the user to base initiative.Cripple the Anathemic Foe

Cost: 5m; Mins: Essence 4Type: ReflexiveKeywords: Decisive-Only, ResonantDuration: InstantPrerequisites: Fire Dragon Cleanses the BattlefieldStriking a Hated Foe with the Eye rends not only the flesh, but also the spirit. After striking a Hated Foe with a decisive attack and dealing at least 3+ levels of decisive damage, the wielder can sacrifice 2 levels of damage to disable one non-permanent charm that the foe has active. Resonant: A wielder resonant with the Eye can pay an additional 2m to prevent the charm from being activated again until the opponent's next turn. This also allows it to affect instant charms such as Dipping Swallow.At Inferno’s Heart

Cost: 15m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 5Type: SimpleKeywords: Decisive-only, DissonantDuration: InstantPrerequisites: Heat of Battle MomentumSpinning the spear in a burning arc the flames on its edge burn scarlet, the flames overflowing far beyond the edge of the blade, before the wielder stabs the blade into the ground. Flames surge outwards, seeking out and destroying all in its path. This requires the user to be at 20+ initiative and creates a wave of fire in a 180 degree crescent in front of them, striking at close range before rolling forwards. The wave of fire spreads 2 range bands every turn. The wave moves out to extreme range from the wielder. The wave of fire is unblockable and undodgeable and has a damage of half the wielders initiative. Things the wielder has a positive intimacy for are spared. Hated Foes are never immune to this damage and must contend with the hazards difficulty regardless. Using this attack resets the user to base initiative. Once per Story.

Dissonant: If the wielder is dissonant then the weapon doesn’t spare anything they have intimacies for, burning all without care.

Comment

I honestly am not well versed on Exalted mechanics, but this does seem a little...front-loaded. You get a lot all by just attuning to the weapon.

You are correct, it does do a lot just on Attunement. My only problem with changing this is that I feel these effects really embody the original theme of the Eye of the Fire Dragon, and if I move them into charms I'll probably find them a bit hard to make interesting and not feel like an evocation tax.

Comment

If you feel that the powers at the start are required, then I would suggest weakening the actual Evocations. The huge power swings you have from the base effects are frankly more powerful then some artifact weapons, with giving you a massive, almost unbeatable, numerical bonus just for having a proper intimacy.

The evocations themselves all seem quite powerful, and some are very questionable on a balance standpoint. For instance; Heat of Battle Momentum is apparently a 3m, 1wp clash attack that doesn't need to be reset, that does full decisive damage but doesn't lower your initiative, doesn't count as your turn, and also lights your opponent on fire. That charm seems insane.

Also some of the explanation of things like 'lighting a bonfire under themselves' are a bit weird. For instance; Fire Dragon Cleanses the Battlefield; Is this an attack that takes the form of the environmental Hazard, or does it literally light a bonfire and will only burn them when they start their turn?

You should also define Resonant and Dissonant for this weapon; you seem to be suggesting that Solars are Dissonant with this weapon, but just per the base rules, Solars and DBs are both Resonant with this. If it has special attunement rules, you should clarify those.

Comment

If you feel that the powers at the start are required, then I would suggest weakening the actual Evocations. The huge power swings you have from the base effects are frankly more powerful then some artifact weapons, with giving you a massive, almost unbeatable, numerical bonus just for having a proper intimacy.

The evocations themselves all seem quite powerful, and some are very questionable on a balance standpoint. For instance; Heat of Battle Momentum is apparently a 3m, 1wp clash attack that doesn't need to be reset, that does full decisive damage but doesn't lower your initiative, doesn't count as your turn, and also lights your opponent on fire. That charm seems insane.

Also some of the explanation of things like 'lighting a bonfire under themselves' are a bit weird. For instance; Fire Dragon Cleanses the Battlefield; Is this an attack that takes the form of the environmental Hazard, or does it literally light a bonfire and will only burn them when they start their turn?

You should also define Resonant and Dissonant for this weapon; you seem to be suggesting that Solars are Dissonant with this weapon, but just per the base rules, Solars and DBs are both Resonant with this. If it has special attunement rules, you should clarify those.

Perhaps I should clarify that Heat of Battle Momentum still resets you as per a normal decisive. I'll also clarify that DB's are still the resonant ones. As per the intimacy bonuses I realized I meant to tune down the DV penalty to only target Solar opposition. As per what it used to do in 2e.

Comment

I'll go ahead and list out a few other problems within the charms then, since I think there's a really solid core here;

Burning Hateful Strike
At 3 motes, with a Direlance, this is a raw damage booster of +5 at Essence 1. +1 for each level of Intimacy, so +8 against a Solar. At +5, it's almost twice as good as Fire and Stones Strike. at +8, it's almost 3 times as good. While there are cases where the extra damage won't matter (If you would only do overwhelming, it still effectively just gives you Overwhelming), but the likelihood of not getting any bonus of this if you hit is minuscule.

The Dragon's Majesty
This may not be actively that bad, but it is very cheap for what it does, effectively giving you an extra attack at the start of combat. The limited use maybe makes it not so bad, however.

Crescent Talon Sweep
This is probably fine.

Wildfire of the Self Invocation
What does 'igniting a bonfire on themselves, striking all enemies in close range', mean? Does it mean that every enemy is subject to an instant Bonfire Hazard as per Core pg 232? If so, 3i for such a sweeping attack is pretty cheap; even if it's just targeting 1 opponent it's likely to do 1-2 damage, which is basically a perfect return for the initiative spent, except you don't have to attack them, it's instead a fairly difficult roll (I don't know many people in my games running around at Stamina + Resistance 10). I wouldn't let it reach out to Short, and maybe make it something like a reset condition of getting to Bonfire then dropping out of it and building it back up, because of the way this interacts with the baseline effect, it literally means you can use it every turn, since every aura state counts as 'Fire Aura'.

Fire Cleanses the Battlefield
This is okay, but can be dangerous, letting you get a free cleave on a lot of targets without putting your initiative at risk at all. I'd probably allow it. But you bring back the 'igniting a bonfire' and say 'immediately'. But you don't say it has to be hit, so it seems like this attack is kind of a 'Save and die', where even if they dodge it they still get hit by a bonfire. It's also, again, a reaching out effect. I would maybe make it to where it only lights people on fire if they get hit, not lighting people on fire even if they manage to dodge the attack.

All Dragons Blaze in Glory
I actually like this effect; in a vacuum, it's really cool for a weapon to influence an Aura state like this. But I'm not clear what or how it combines with the last base power of this artifact, which always makes you have Fire Aura; it seems to combine in such a way that lets you expend any Aura for any effect. A neat idea, actually, but I'm not sure how well it is balanced. The reset condition is also weird due to the last base power; if you expend a Water Aura that you're having act like a Fire Aura, do you reset this charm?

Wildfire Blur Technique
I like this.

Heat of Battle Momentum
This has Aura but no Element on it's Keywords. I assume it means Fire though. We had talked about the whole thing on if it resets you or not; but does this do Decisive damage AND also light your opponent on fire with bonus effects? I assume not, and the idea is that you win the decisive attack and light them on fire, then reset. There is probably a better way to phrase the effects of the bonfire, such as 'This bonfire lingers on the opponent for (Exalt's Initiative/4, round up) turns. For the second half, I guess it's supposed to read like 'The Bonfire's Damage is (4+ Half the Exalt's Initiative, maximum of 5)L, and has a resistance roll of (5 + Half the Dragonblooded's Permanent Willpower)'? This effect is still very powerful, because it turns your initiative into a constantly repeating source of damage; at 20 Initiative, the bonfire would burn for 5 rounds at 9L damage with a resistance roll of 10, which would take a massive amount of essence to succeed with even once. Assuming the opponent doesn't succeed on the resistance roll, it would do around 15 levels of damage (Average of 3 per turn). That's a much better deal then just decisively attacking your opponent. And it didn't even take your turn. I can like lighting them on fire, but I think it's overtuned; it's basically just sneaking in Decisive Damage over time rather then actually not having it. Why not just light them on fire for (Essence) Rounds, which deals the normal bonfire damage, and have it cost like 6-8 Initiative. That would pay off at least some of the damage the Bonfire is likely to do (And give a better payout as the character's Essence gets higher), and let you use it without resetting, at the cost of slowly burning your Initiative.

Cripple the Anathemic Foe
These effects are rare, but that doesn't mean that they're bad. I don't think this is too bad of an effect all things considered, but I don't know about the 2m charge to turn it off for a round, though I respect this is going for a different effect then Cancel the Apocalypse and appreciate that it's exploring a slightly different design space. Why not make it expend Fire Aura or something instead?

At Inferno's Heart
I'd make this once per story and require Initiative 20+, then just base the damage and difficulty purely off the Exalt's Initiative, rather then getting the base effect of the Bonfire. This is a cataclysmic upheaval, so it shouldn't be something you can just bust out multiple times per story, and it doesn't need even more extra damage when it can already hit a massive amount of targets.

Overall;

I really like the design of this, sort of. I like the idea of bringing the Eye of the Fire Dragon into 3E, and I like the focus on fire. But some of the effects are iffy, and the weapon itself is so frontloaded with free stats and power that it doesn't feel like it can be well balanced; the free overwhelming, the free Defense bonus, and then against Solars the free DV bonus, are all really powerful, in addition to the anima flux bonus. A lot of that stuff feels like it could be made into actual Evocations rather then just free powers, since they're basically charm level powers; the weapon's 2E incarnation had issues because 2E refused to give weapons charms, but I think in this case simply transferring them into free bonuses is a bit too powerful. A charm that gave you +3 overwhelming against a foe that you have a Major or higher Negative Intimacy to is pretty powerful, getting it basically for free is stretching the limits of what an Artifact can do. At the very least it feels rather N/A, just in the stats it provides.

1 like

Comment

Burning Hateful Strike
Maybe I wrote this in a way that was not concise. but it does not give +8. The way the evocation is intended to work is converting the Overwhelming bonus given from just the attunement effect of the weapon into Post-Soak damage dice. Overwhelming dice are already in a way post soak, but if you do an amount of damage far outstripping the opponents soak you don't really gain anything from it. With this evocation against an opponent where you outstrip their soak by enough you aren't hitting overwhelming you can instead make it so that you are gaining between 2 and 4 dice of post soak damage.

The Dragon's Majesty
Yeah I figure this one is potent but generally fine. Burning Dragon's Mien can only hit one target anyway. Potent, but definitely in the realm of realism for a workhorse from an Art 5.

Crescent Talon Sweep
Good, it's my baby.

Wildfire of the Self Invocation
Instant bonfire hazard as per the core book. You do have to actually expend your aura to do so, but yes you can basically launch one every turn. Short range isn't until Essence 5, so I still feel that's an appropriately beefy effect for E5. 6i is somewhat pricey to do so as well.

Fire Cleanses the Battlefield
It states all Struck opponents are ignited. "Afterwards this ignites the grounds beneath all struck opponents immediately, subjecting them to a bonfire hazard, which continues to burn beneath them until it is put out, but may be moved out of normally. " Perhaps I need to reword it to be more concise?

All Dragons Blaze in Glory
It's meant to be using an actual aura on another charm or evocation. Meaning that this evocation cannot reset itself.

Wildfire Blur Technique
This one was also one I really liked but that was simple but potent.

Heat of Battle Momentum
I never really put the element keyword on any of these effects, but I realize now that I forgot to subsume the "Expend Fire Aura" into the cost when I removed it as an additional effect. It has been righted to include that and I will edit my post here to reflect this change. I also like your idea of changing it to use initiative and making it burn for (Essence) turns instead. I'll probably still let them increase the damage a tad however. I really liked the idea of empowering the bonfire with your strike. Changed to 8i, 1wp, Expend Fire Aura for cost. Made it deal 6 dice a round and increased the difficulty to 6.This might be a bit of personal bias but I always find my players taking reasonable stamina and resistance, even on non-combat characters. Others can feel free to not enhance it as such.

Cripple the Anathemic Foe
This is bringing back something it did automatically in 2e, whenever you hit you'd roll a d10 for each charm that your opponent had active. A success meant it stayed active, a failure meant it was deactivated. Obviously that's somewhat ridiculous when compared to Cancel the Apocalypse, but I wanted to keep something here that could be equally brutal. CtA requires you crash an opponent, but this lets you cancel some damage to turn off a charm. Which you can do more readily. The locking it off for a round is specifically supposed to be brutal for people who can ignore onslaught penalties. Bulwark stance and Iron Battle Focus especially don't like this. Your Wyld Hunt friends will appreciate you as well.

At Inferno's Heart
Correct! I should have included a Once Per Story modifier there and in fact meant to. I guess I was so excited to post it here that I forgot! I have changed the requirement to be at 20+ initiative as you suggested and made a change to what the damage is. Making it 1/2 the users initiative, I might need to add a cap of sorts to this.

As for your overall word, I can agree to some of it, I just can't find myself wanting to change the frontloaded part of the artifact. It is a lot of bonuses, I can agree. But I look at them and I don't have the desire to change them into charms. I like the instant advantage it gives, it feels incredibly potent. If enough people agree i'll go as far as to change the artifacts rating to N/A, but I don't think i'll be changing the attunement from what it is.

Comment

Burning Hateful Strike
Maybe I wrote this in a way that was not concise. but it does not give +8. The way the evocation is intended to work is converting the Overwhelming bonus given from just the attunement effect of the weapon into Post-Soak damage dice. Overwhelming dice are already in a way post soak, but if you do an amount of damage far outstripping the opponents soak you don't really gain anything from it. With this evocation against an opponent where you outstrip their soak by enough you aren't hitting overwhelming you can instead make it so that you are gaining between 2 and 4 dice of post soak damage.

Yeah, it's not clear then. if it's that limited, I'd actually say instead of the conversion, you can actually just make it post-soak damage dice, like this; 'Against a Hated foe, add the Hatred Bonus to the post-soak damage of the attack', then keep the cost the same or maybe even lower it to 2m. Hatred Bonus here is just so I don't have to keep typing out 'the bonus against hated foes' or whatever. If you make it a specific value like that it's easier to reference.

Next two are fine so leaving those aside.

Wildfire of the Self Invocation
Instant bonfire hazard as per the core book. You do have to actually expend your aura to do so, but yes you can basically launch one every turn. Short range isn't until Essence 5, so I still feel that's an appropriately beefy effect for E5. 6i is somewhat pricey to do so as well.

This kind of fire Eruption is clearly the core of the weapon, so I would be hesitant to change it too much, since I think this idea of erupting with fire is very neat conceptually. I don't know if this version specifically is balanced or not but from more examination of it I also wouldn't change this specific charm. If it ends up feeling too powerful I'd actually cut powers away from other charms

Fire Cleanses the Battlefield
It states all Struck opponents are ignited. "Afterwards this ignites the grounds beneath all struck opponents immediately, subjecting them to a bonfire hazard, which continues to burn beneath them until it is put out, but may be moved out of normally. " Perhaps I need to reword it to be more concise?

with the requirement to hit, I think it's fine. I may have misread it.

All Dragons Blaze in Glory
It's meant to be using an actual aura on another charm or evocation. Meaning that this evocation cannot reset itself.

That makes sense. The worry about things like this is when you have a charm that's reset condition is 'using the charm', which obviously isn't the intent from how you're talking.

Skipping the next one.

Heat of Battle Momentum
I never really put the element keyword on any of these effects, but I realize now that I forgot to subsume the "Expend Fire Aura" into the cost when I removed it as an additional effect. It has been righted to include that and I will edit my post here to reflect this change. I also like your idea of changing it to use initiative and making it burn for (Essence) turns instead. I'll probably still let them increase the damage a tad however. I really liked the idea of empowering the bonfire with your strike. Changed to 8i, 1wp, Expend Fire Aura for cost. Made it deal 6 dice a round and increased the difficulty to 6.This might be a bit of personal bias but I always find my players taking reasonable stamina and resistance, even on non-combat characters. Others can feel free to not enhance it as such.

This one is definitely fine now. Stuff like this always requires table knowledge so if you know your players are the kind to buy up Stamina and Resistance, leaning on that to make the effects challenging is something that should be done.

Cripple the Anathemic Foe
This is bringing back something it did automatically in 2e, whenever you hit you'd roll a d10 for each charm that your opponent had active. A success meant it stayed active, a failure meant it was deactivated. Obviously that's somewhat ridiculous when compared to Cancel the Apocalypse, but I wanted to keep something here that could be equally brutal. CtA requires you crash an opponent, but this lets you cancel some damage to turn off a charm. Which you can do more readily. The locking it off for a round is specifically supposed to be brutal for people who can ignore onslaught penalties. Bulwark stance and Iron Battle Focus especially don't like this. Your Wyld Hunt friends will appreciate you as well.

I still think the charm is mostly fine, so I don't have much to comment here.

At Inferno's Heart
Correct! I should have included a Once Per Story modifier there and in fact meant to. I guess I was so excited to post it here that I forgot! I have changed the requirement to be at 20+ initiative as you suggested and made a change to what the damage is. Making it 1/2 the users initiative, I might need to add a cap of sorts to this.

As for your overall word, I can agree to some of it, I just can't find myself wanting to change the frontloaded part of the artifact. It is a lot of bonuses, I can agree. But I look at them and I don't have the desire to change them into charms. I like the instant advantage it gives, it feels incredibly potent. If enough people agree i'll go as far as to change the artifacts rating to N/A, but I don't think i'll be changing the attunement from what it is.

As I said, this is a really interesting take on the weapon and while I may not agree with all the design decisions, there's a lot of stuff here that's clearly designed very well and in a way that is appropriately evocative.

Comment

My question to you is, is this an artifact that's meant to be slotted into just any game, or is this an artifact meant for like, a specific campaign?

To be clear why, basically it affects how I'd critique the balance of a lot of things. For example this artifact is crazy powerful in really specific ways. Unlike a lot of other powerful artifacts, which give minor advantages numbers wise but add a great diversity in what the character can even attempt to do, EotFD just makes you way better at fighting in general. Like how Stormcaller lets you summon a tempest as you fight, or Volcano Cutter lets you destroy terrain with volcanoes after a big setup.

This could totally work though, in the right campaign. Like if you're running Solars and really wanted to make one essence 5 badass DB the kind of thing that can fight a Dawn straight up. Or if you're playing a Wyld Hunt game or something and you actually want your players to be able to go up against multiple Solars at once, this might actually let them do that.

It also makes a huge difference depending on if the defending Solar has Dipping Swallow or Shadow Over Water. That -3 penalty to defense alone is absolutely killer, especially if the DB is already inflicting some kind of environmental penalty on the Solar. With a combination of effects like that, and without Dipping Swallow, it's easy to imagine even a powerful Solar using their full excellency to claw their way up to only 6 defense or even less.

That's not even counting effects like Wildfire Blur, which is bonkers good. Again, this isn't a bad thing, but only in the right campaign. Like maybe in a mixed game where you want your DB to be up closer to the level of the other Solar fighters.

Comment

My question to you is, is this an artifact that's meant to be slotted into just any game, or is this an artifact meant for like, a specific campaign?

To be clear why, basically it affects how I'd critique the balance of a lot of things. For example this artifact is crazy powerful in really specific ways. Unlike a lot of other powerful artifacts, which give minor advantages numbers wise but add a great diversity in what the character can even attempt to do, EotFD just makes you way better at fighting in general. Like how Stormcaller lets you summon a tempest as you fight, or Volcano Cutter lets you destroy terrain with volcanoes after a big setup.

This could totally work though, in the right campaign. Like if you're running Solars and really wanted to make one essence 5 badass DB the kind of thing that can fight a Dawn straight up. Or if you're playing a Wyld Hunt game or something and you actually want your players to be able to go up against multiple Solars at once, this might actually let them do that.

It also makes a huge difference depending on if the defending Solar has Dipping Swallow or Shadow Over Water. That -3 penalty to defense alone is absolutely killer, especially if the DB is already inflicting some kind of environmental penalty on the Solar. With a combination of effects like that, and without Dipping Swallow, it's easy to imagine even a powerful Solar using their full excellency to claw their way up to only 6 defense or even less.

That's not even counting effects like Wildfire Blur, which is bonkers good. Again, this isn't a bad thing, but only in the right campaign. Like maybe in a mixed game where you want your DB to be up closer to the level of the other Solar fighters.

Basically as you've said I want it to be able to make a dragonblood a serious contender against a Solar. Being that it was made to fight them I felt it appropriate to be particularly harsh against them. Though everyone does make a good point on the -3 penalty to defense. I might have to just cut that out and take it into a charm so at least you're paying for that privilege.

A mixed campaign is definitely somewhere I feel this would be an appropriate artifact. Though I tend to run mostly solar and dragonblooded games. In the former I can usually see this as a serious threat to add to a late game Wyld hunt. In the latter I can see it being a valuable asset to players who are heavily invested in combat and have goals in game of killing anathema.

I do really want this to be useable in everyone's games, but I wonder if to do so I'd have to say it's artifact n/a. I really like where it is right now.

Comment

Okay, so “Solars and anyone you have a negative Tie towards take aggravated damage from this weapon” is a perfectly fine attunement bonus. The defense and attack penalties and the overwhelming bonus absolutely need to be Evocations though, and the “Your aura always counts as a fire aura” is straight-up broken. A majority of the Evocations, meanwhile, seem like they belong on a different artifact.

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Okay, so “Solars and anyone you have a negative Tie towards take aggravated damage from this weapon” is a perfectly fine attunement bonus. The defense and attack penalties and the overwhelming bonus absolutely need to be Evocations though, and the “Your aura always counts as a fire aura” is straight-up broken. A majority of the Evocations, meanwhile, seem like they belong on a different artifact.

"Okay, so “Solars and anyone you have a negative Tie towards take aggravated damage from this weapon” is a perfectly fine attunement bonus."

Ok.

"The defense and attack penalties and the overwhelming bonus absolutely need to be Evocations though"

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I do really want this to be useable in everyone's games, but I wonder if to do so I'd have to say it's artifact n/a. I really like where it is right now.

Yeah I'd definitely say that as it is now, it's much closer to the function of an N/A artifact, where it is dispensed at ST discretion and can change the course of a whole campaign.. I mean, other N/A artifacts do things like fly around the South as invincible starships that can blow up a city, or giant planet wide defense grids that can annihilate entire armies of fey creatures. Having one that's this powerful but way easier to wield seems like a good tradeoff.

If I'm being honest as well, its power is impressive, but I've had at least four characters in games that I've run who were powerful enough not to care too much. Maybe if you give them Dragon's Unfailing Vigour or something, but probably not. It makes them strong, for sure, but not anywhere near as strong as a really combat focused Solar.

If you're looking to make an artifact 5 version of it I can help with some balance there, I think. If you want.